Speak louder than actions
by megyal
Summary: From a prompt: "Kakashi likes to read; words have an effect on him that actions don't." Warnings for first person, Iruka-narrative and hints of IruKaka.


Written for a prompt over at the kakairu_kink meme at Livejournal.

**Speak louder than actions**

"I like words," Sharingan Kakashi once told me. There was something humble and honest about the way in which he said that, and I think that was the moment I really fell in love with him.

*

After he had been absolutely disgusting before those exams, I'd been prepared to go around forever with a grudge nursed in my heart, like a mother with a beloved child... but he'd intercepted me a day later on my way home and simply said, "I apologise for my behaviour. I hope you understand what I have to do to continue their training."

"I understand," I had replied, stopping and turning fully to look at his masked face. "I understand perfectly well, Kakashi-san. I suppose I owe you an apology as well."

He had looked at me expectantly, eyebrow tilted in an elegant fashion, but I hadn't continued. Remember what I said about that grudge-holding? I just didn't feel like talking to him at all. Oh, I know; he's _Kakashi_, one of the best nin in the whole village if not THE best, but there was just something about him that pissed me off when we were in that exam-meeting (apart from that whole dressing-down I got, and how that one had _smarted_) and it was still rubbing me raw as he stood before me, hands stuck in his pockets, slouched over in that careless manner of his.

At that moment, I had felt like striking him in the face, but I've been trying to keep my temper, so I didn't. Besides, he's quick; he would have probably dodged me and broken my arm, but that really didn't stop me from _wishing_ and clenching my fist. His expression, what I could see of it, went from expectant to surprised and he tilted his head.

When he spoke, I fully expected something darkly snide to come out, like: "Come on, sensei. Give it your best shot." Instead, he said mildly, "Are you hungry?"

I was so surprised, I stopped fantasizing about my fist smashing into his concealed mouth and blinked at him. "...what?"

"Hungry." He nodded his head slowly, as if encouraging a slow child. "For food. To eat."

"I..." I stopped and frowned. This might have been a part of some elaborate trap, to embarrass me again. "Are you?" I asked, because that seemed like the safest route right then. Kakashi had lifted one shoulder and walked off.

"I am. And if you eat with me, that would make it more pleasant, I think."

*

We started out talking over food, and we spoke about lots of random things. After that first meal, I went away with the impression that maybe he wasn't such a massive asshole as I'd first thought. I know; Umino Iruka, wrong again. I can deal with that, I've been wrong lots of times before.

After that, we began to eat together regularly: nearly twice a week when both of us were in the village, and there was that one time when I had an assignment in Sand, helping to reformat their school syllabus; _he_ had appeared, escorting the Hokage on an official meeting with the Kazekage. I blushed when I saw him step into the Kazekage's office behind Tsunade; it was a surprising reaction, but apparently my face decided that it would go hot and red as soon as my gaze locked with his. I hoped that the leaders didn't notice when I ducked my head and mumbled a reply to his greeting, but both Tsunade-sama and Gaara-sama had their eyes fixed on me when I finally managed to look up. Tsunade appeared as if she wanted to burst into incredulous laughter and Gaara had his head cocked to one side, obviously curious about how tongue-tied I had suddenly become. After all, just a few moments before, he and I had been chatting quite fine.

Kakashi asked to be excused from duty; Tsunade shooed him away, and since Gaara was now engaged, I took Kakashi to lunch. He told me silly stories from back home, making me laugh out loud in a most unseemly manner, but I ignored the sidelong glances we received. After that, we headed to the library. Suna has a massive library; the ancient Books of Talking Sand are housed there, and I showed them to Kakashi.

"I thought the ANBU would escort the Hokage," I said to him as we walked around the large white podium; the yellowed scrolls were lain out very neatly and a chakra barrier hummed around them, preserving the delicate leaves and keeping out unwanted hands.

"Oh, they are." He bent close, trying to get a better look. "I'm just the obvious distraction, but they're here. I asked the Hokage to be a part of her protection team, because..." he turned and looked at me, his lips shifting underneath his mask into a smile. "Well. Just because."

I smiled in return. "Well, I'm glad. I'd missed you."

He looked at me for a long time, then returned his attention to the Books of Sand; I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling my face flush with that damned heat again. At least, I consoled myself, I was just telling the truth. I _had_ missed him, missed chattering to him about random things. It's funny how I had disliked him so much before, but now I... wondered about him when he went off on a mission, what he was doing, if he was safe. My mind was caught up in him. My mother had once told me that I was a child of extremes and I suppose she was completely right.

"They're very old," I murmured in a quiet tone, standing close to him so he could hear. "Most of the scrolls are stories that have some moral lesson from known elders, but a few of them are from an anonymous writer... or maybe it was a group of writers. It's really lovely, there's a transcription around here somewhere--"

"I like words," Kakashi cut in suddenly, his eye fixed on the shadowed valleys and proud mountains that made up the tiny landscape of the scrolls, handwriting filling the spaces like a forest. "Words can be more powerful than a jutsu, in their own way. They can hold you in place or send you far away."

He was still looking at the scrolls when he said that; I'm sure he didn't see the way I gazed at him and I'm glad, because I think my heart was shining through my eyes at that point.

"A poet at heart," I finally managed to tease, elbowing him gently in the ribs. "I knew it. Underneath all that armour, you're a man armed to the teeth with literary weaponry."

"Of course." He straightened up, and gave me that one-eyed grin. "Haven't you seen me dealing out pain with my copies of Icha Icha?"

I laughed at that, and loudly. He smiled, eye sketching a curve of serene mystery and I felt my heart thump hard in my chest as if it thought he was trying to stop it from beating normally. In a way, he was.

*

In Konoha's hospital, I read to him from a transcribed copy of the Book of Talking Sands, which the Kazekage had gifted me for my services:

_When you part from your friend, you grieve not;  
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. _

"I hope you wake up soon," I muttered after the nurse bustled out; she had given Kakashi a brisk wipe-down, making sure the wounds he sustained on a recent mission were healing properly under the chakra-infused paste that Tsunade-sama had smeared on them. He was still unconscious, that blasted Sharingan had wrung him nearly dry this time; but Tsunade had said that he would wake up sooner or later and yes, I could visit when I had free time from my duties. The nurses were kind; they let me stay past visiting hours. Sometimes being a teacher worked in one's favour, especially when I've had nearly all their nin-children pass through my classes.

_Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;  
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered  
When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more. _

"Mmm," he groaned when he finally woke up; I put down the book with its hard, gilded cover and walked over to his bed, touching his masked face. The skin of his forehead wrinkled, he kept his eyes clenched shut against the afternoon light and said in a raspy voice: "...Iruka?"

"Yes," I said past a lump in my throat. "Yes, it's me."

"Oh."

"Should I get a nurse?" I was already moving away, but he reached one hand up from underneath the thin white sheet and grasped my wrist with surprising strength.

"No. Stay. You were... reading?"

"Yes, I was."

"Stay," he said, releasing me. I looked down for him for a few long, breathless beats, noting the lines around the corner of his eyes, more likely from all that expressive grinning, and how papery-thin and pale his skin appeared. I pulled the chair close, and opened my book again.

_Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.  
And your body is the harp of your soul,  
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds._

*

Kakashi was squirming in his own bed, having been discharged from the hospital with stern warnings not to over-exert himself for another week. I knew he was squirming, because I was lying on my stomach beside him, still in my dark working-clothes. I had come to his apartment straight from the missions room, as usual, to see him clad in a pair of weird pyjamas with a shuriken pattern. It made him look completely ridiculous and impossibly cute, since his mask and eye-patch were made of the same material. Apparently, they had been a gift from Gai, and Kakashi wore them as a "statement". What that statement was, he had not yet explained to me.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked, putting down the book I had been reading and getting up to sit back on my ankles; he was reclined against the pillows, squirming miserably. "Are you in pain?"

"Pain?" he mused, and fidgeted. "Not really."

"Well, stop moving, you'll aggravate your injuries." I reached out to still him with a hand to his shoulder, but he flinched away from my touch. I felt something twist tight in my chest and pulled my hand back slowly from where it had been held out in mid-air. "I'm... sorry, I'll just go."

"No!" He grabbed my hand so hard that I felt the bones in my wrist shift and then released me just as rapidly, staring at me with one wide eye. "I... Maybe you _should_ leave me alone. You've been over here nearly every day, just reading to me."

"Fine. I'll be on my way, since you obviously don't like hearing my voice," I countered, feeling anger and hurt curdle inside me. I made no move to get up, however. I just glared at him, rubbing my complaining hand. "What is wrong with you?!"

He looked down at his lap and I stared at his downcast expression, a little peeved and a lot confused; still, there was a part of me that took note of his long lashes, oddly dark for a person with such fair colouring.

"Remember I told you I like words," he said and I made a face, thinking he was being nonsensical. "I... like words, and I like how words sound when they're coming from you." His gaze flickered up, and then snapped down to his lap again. For my part, I was probably gaping at him like some large fish that had been dragged out of its happy wet home into the unforgiving world of air.

"What?" I croaked out, and he grimaced, lips twisting against one of the printed shuriken.

"Maybe you should leave," he repeated in a harsh voice. I got up in a daze. I reached for my book that lay beside his thigh and froze, noticing how his hands were folded over his crotch, in an almost casual manner.

"Kakashi?" His name slid between my lips like a smoky promise and I was shocked to see him shiver.

"_Leave_," he snapped and I turned, barely restraining myself from fleeing.

*

"Kakashi," I called through the hairline of space between the door and the frame. "Let me in."

A silence answered me, but it was heavy with Kakashi's disapproval.

"Kakashi," I insisted, smiling in embarrassment as a few of his neighbours strolled past, peering at me curiously. "Let me in. Unless you prefer that I say the things you want hear while I'm standing in the corridor."

The door clicked open instantly, and I slipped inside his darkened apartment, just barely catching a glimpse of the material of his clothing as he turned the corner into his living space. I followed, and found him sitting in the sofa, dressed in his shinobi-wear minus the flak-jacket. He gave me a bored glance out of the corner of his eye as I sat down right next to him, but out of the corner of _my_ eye I saw his fingers twitch on the arm of the chair.

"Kakashi," I began and hesitated, not sure where to begin; was there even a clear starting-line? Well, when in doubt, ask. That's what I've always told my students. "What... what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he answered coolly, but his fingers rubbed restlessly at the rough material of the sofa. I felt a sharp thrill run through me, tempered by a sense of disbelief. Kakashi was... _Kakashi_. How could I have such an effect on him?

"When we were in Suna," I began, hesitating a little and then plunging forward, "there were some underground caverns that I had wanted to show you. We could have been all alone."

I heard his breath hitch and I stopped to see if he wanted to say something, but he didn't.

"I... I would have pulled you into one of the smaller caves, and, um. Push you against the wall." I stopped again, pondering the feasibility of this. Would Kakashi, this Kakashi sitting so still beside me, actually allow something like that?

"And then?"

My face burned at the rough quality of his voice, but I murmured, "And then... and then I'd press you against any surface, press against you. Put my hands on your hips... unzip your jacket, put my fingers against your skin." The words began to come out of me like a river. "I would... I would put my hands down your pants and wrap my fingers around your hard..." what would I say there? Penis? Member? "Cock," I decided firmly and Kakashi let out a sound, a long, moaning sigh.

I turned to him fully; he was still in the same position, but there was a mantle of rigidity hung over the entirety of his body, and his eye was tightly closed.

"Kakashi," I whispered and leaned close. "Would you let me fuck you right there?"

"Yes," he answered without hesitation and I let out a shaky breath, sliding the heel of my palm against the growing bulge in my pants. Kakashi was almost a complete model of restraint, but I could see a slight tremble shake through his fingers and I knew that he was getting close.

"I would slide inside you," I told him. "Pump in and out of you, while you brace against that rocky surface, pushing back against me. I'd fill you up and keep thrusting inside you, just because that's how you like it."

Kakashi made a sharp motion with his head, as if to deny it, but then nodded jerkily.

"You _love_ it." Where these words were coming from, I had no idea. They just... skipped out of me, almost without my permission. The only explanation I had for that was that, well, I'm a teacher. Words have always been a teacher's mainstay, a teacher's power. We use them to... like Kakashi said, to hold people close and send them away.

"When you walk afterwards, and you're talking to other people," I said, watching him breathe faster and faster, "you'll feel the burn of me, and you'll remember how hot and stiff I was inside you--"

Kakashi's fingers clamped onto my wrist, like he had held on when I visited him in the hospital; I stopped talking, staring at the way his body seemed to go through shocks and aftershocks. I think that if I wasn't sitting almost in his lap, I wouldn't have noticed. Is this how he came all the time? I was suddenly hungry to see him break into pieces, to call my name when he found his release.

For the moment, though, I could only shift uncomfortably even as he tilted his head against the back of the sofa, taking deep, calming breaths. I tried to keep still, but I still jumped a little when he said my name.

"Yes?" I answered, a little nervously.

"Want me to take care of that for you?" He let his head fall to the side, and squinted open his uncovered eye to stare at me. His gaze snapped down to the aching bulge pressing against the material of my pants and then dragged up back to me, amused and sultry all at once. I watched him pull down his mask, revealing a wider mouth that I thought he would have, a long nose and an oddly neat series of four scars on the side of his jaw.

"Are you going to talk to it or touch it?" I asked, quite reasonably. For some reason, he found this funny. He laughed and laughed, and he had such an odd way of laughing: he put his arms around his own chest and hugged himself tightly as his laughter pealed through the room.

Then, he unfurled his hands and reached for me, putting one hand around the back of my neck and tugging me close, even as his other hand began to sneak into my clothes.

"_You_ talk," he advised, murmuring against my mouth. "And I'll touch."

_fin_

**AN:** The quotes from the "Book of Talking Sands" really come from 'The Prophet', by Kahlil Gibran. You can find the rest of it online, it's lovely.


End file.
